Prices: $6.99 to $8.99 for lunch; about $9 to $19 for dinner (most dishes are $12.99 to $15.99 at dinnertime)

Information: 691-8900

As much as I love me some green bean casserole, I also love me some green beans of the noncanned foods variety — the fresh kind from the garden that beckons with that rich green color rather than the pale color from the canned version, as if the life has been sucked right out of those poor green beans.

And this is the thing Johnny Carino's does right. The eatery embraces fresh vegetables and other quality ingredients and seems to love a good veggie as much as I do.

Such was the case Monday when the Lunch Buddy and I stopped by Johnny Carino's for a quick bite, though if you're planning on going there, plan to spend a little more time than usual. This isn't the stop-in-and-go kind of place. Lunch Buddy barely made it back in time for her 1 p.m. meeting, even though we arrived at the Italian country eatery about 11:45 a.m.

It wasn't long before our friendly waitress was at our table taking our drink orders and was back with one of my favorite parts of any Johnny Carino's meal — those two little oblong-shaped herbed loaves that are accompanied by a side of roasted garlic olive oil for dipping. I could make a meal out of those lovely little herbed breads.

But alas, I decided to actually order a meal and went with a low-fat option, the Lemon Rosemary Chicken ($8.99 on the lunch menu; $13.99 on the dinner menu), instead of my usual, the Grilled Chicken Bowtie Festival (my favorite because it comes with crumbled bacon). The Lunch Buddy dedicated herself to the Spicy Romano Bowtie Pasta ($8.99 on the lunch menu).

The Lemon Rosemary Chicken was, to use a technical term, yummy. It was well flavored, even a little sweet — I think I tasted some balsamic vinegar in there — and the chicken breast was very juicy. I didn't taste much of the tang of the lemon, however. I did wonder if this was truly a low-fat option because it was so tasty (and may have been brushed with a little too much olive oil). It came with a side of angel hair pasta mixed in with tomatoes and greens, and another side of fresh zucchini and yellow squash. The waitress originally brought me the wrong Lemon Rosemary Chicken dish with a side of green beans, and I was sad to see it go. The fresh green beans looked delicious.

The Lunch Buddy's Spicy Romano Chicken includes bow-tie pasta and chicken flavored with cayenne pepper, a Romano cream sauce, mushrooms, artichokes, sun-dried tomatoes and scallions. She said she was impressed with the freshness of the ingredients, which really showed when it came to her Caesar salad. The salad was dressed perfectly — just enough dressing and not slathered with it.

Since Lunch Buddy had to get back to work, I ordered a to-go dish from the $2 mini dessert menu. I picked the tiramisu. It was creamy and sweet and just delightful with its espresso-soaked ladyfinger cookies and custard. It was the perfect end to a tasty meal.

By the way, if you've never tried the Italian nachos, they're a twist on traditional nachos, spicing it up with such ingredients as black olives and pepperoncinis (good stuff), and you can't go wrong with the 16-layer lasagna — yep, a 16-layer lasagna, which is one of the top menu items.

Johnny Carino's offers tasty Italian food with fresh vegetables and herbs. The only downside is the price-point. An $8.99 lunch plus the drink will put you over the $10 mark (though other choices on the lunch menu will ring in at about $2 less). And while the service time was decent, it might not be fast enough for all the Frantic Frans out there on the standard 1-hour lunch break.